SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 10, September 20, 2004

 

INDIA

Assam: Demographic Jitters
Wasbir Hussain
Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, The Sentinel, Guwahati

According to the National Census of 2001, the Muslim population in the Northeast Indian State of Assam is 30.9 per cent out of a total of 26.6 million. Although the last Census was conducted three years ago, it was only on September 6, 2004, that the office of the Registrar General of India, which carries out census operations, released the statistical break-up on religious lines. The latest figures demonstrate that the proportionate growth of the Muslim population in Assam, in comparison with other religious communities, is second only to Jammu and Kashmir (67 per cent Muslims).

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The 2001 Census put Assam's population at 26,655,528. Of this, 17,296,455 were recorded as Hindus and 8,240,611 Muslims. Among the critical elements made public by the Census authorities is the fact that six of Assam's 27 districts have a majority Muslim population. The district of Barpeta tops the list with 977,943 Muslims and 662,066 Hindus. The other five districts where Muslims constitute a majority: Dhubri, Goalpara, Nagaon, Karimganj and Hailakandi.

The issue of Muslim population growth in Assam has a disturbing resonance. The State has long been in the grip of a murky politics of citizenship over the issue of unabated illegal migration from adjoining Bangladesh, with which it shares a 262 kilometre long border. The particular significance of the recently released Census data is the fact that the rates of growth of Muslim populations are the highest precisely in the districts that share a border with, or lie close to the border with, Bangladesh - particularly Dhubri, Barpeta, Karimganj and Hailakandi - giving credence to the widely held belief that illegal migration from Bangladesh was the source of these demographic trends. Such migration clearly continues unhindered, despite the barbed-wire fence being erected in stretches and the presence of the Border Security Force (BSF) along the border.

A look at the census figures of 1971 and 1991 (there was no census in Assam in 1981 due to unrest in the State) shows that there has been a steady to rapid rise in the Muslim population in districts proximate to the border, confirming apprehensions of a continuing illegal influx. This, perhaps, goes a long way to explain the rather high Muslim growth rate in Assam, estimated at 77.42 per cent between 1971 and 1991.

In 1971, Muslims, for instance, comprised 64.46 per cent of the population in Dhubri district. This rose to 70.45 per cent in 1991 - a total growth of 77.42 per cent between 1971 and 1991. By 2001 the proportion of Muslims had risen further to 74.29 per cent of the population in Dhubri. By 2001, the Muslim population in Barpeta rose from 56.07 per cent in 1991 to 59.3 per cent; in Goalpara, from 50.18 per cent to 53.71 per cent, and Hailakandi from 54.79 per cent 57.6 per cent. Significantly, two new districts joined the list of Muslim majority districts in Assam by 2001: Karimganj, where the Muslim population rose from 49.17 per cent in 1991 to 52.3 per cent; and Nagaon, where the community's population grew from 47.19 per cent in 1991 to 50.99 per cent.

There is need to make a clear distinction, here, between indigenous Assamese-speaking Muslims and Bangladeshi migrants before analyzing the demographic and security implications of such population growth. Aside from Guwahati, Assam's capital (that is part of the Kamrup Metro district), the heartland of the indigenous Assamese Muslims - whose origins can be traced to the forays of the pre-Mughals in the 13th century - is located around the tea growing eastern districts of Jorhat, Golaghat, Sivasagar and Dibrugarh. In Jorhat district the Muslims comprised just 3.89 per cent of the total population in 1971, rising to 4.32 per cent in 1991. The growth rate was 48.04 per cent between 1971 and 1991. In Sivasagar, Muslims accounted for 6.65 per cent of the population in 1971, climbing to 7.63 per cent in 1991; in Dibrugarh from 3.66 per cent of the total population in 1971 to 4.49 per cent in 1991; and in Golaghat, Muslims comprised 5.17 per cent of the population in 1971, rising to 7.11 per cent in 1991. It is useful to note, in this context, that the growth rate of the Hindu population in Jorhat, Sivasagar, Dibrugarh and Golaghat was between 32 and 49 per cent over the 1971-1991 period, closely comparable to the rates of growth for the indigenous Muslim populations.

Evidently, the Muslim growth rate in areas dominated by indigenous Assamese-speaking Muslims, located far from the Bangladesh border, have been registering marginal increases, as compared to areas located close to the border.

With these startling facts being brought to light, influential groups, such as the All Assam Students' Union (AASU ) - which had led the six-year-long anti-foreigner (that is, anti-Bangladeshi) uprising in the State between 1979 and 1985 - have once again upped the ante, reiterating fears that the illegal aliens will eventually overwhelm the indigenous population. They have also stepped up demands for effective action against this unremitting population offensive, including the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), with 1971 as the cut-off year.

The population explosion in Bangladesh, with 2.8 million added every year in one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world, creates the push factors for this silent demographic invasion. These are, however, compounded by an expansionist political ideology, implicitly or explicitly supported in the corridors of power in Bangladesh: the idea of Lebensraum ('living space'), which has been variously projected by the country's leadership for a long time, though the use of the expression itself is relatively recent. In the early nineties, Sadeq Khan, a former diplomat, stated:

All projections, however, clearly indicate that by the next decade, that is to say by the first decade of the 21st century, Bangladesh will face a serious crisis of lebensraum… A natural overflow of population pressure is very much on the cards and will not be restrainable by barbed wire or border patrol measures. The natural trend of population overflow from Bangladesh is towards the sparsely populated lands in the South East, in the Arakan side and of the North East in the Seven Sisters side of the Indian sub-continent…

The idea had found repeated articulation even before the creation of Bangladesh, and enumerated, among its supporters, Shiekh Mujibur Rahman, the country's first Prime Minister.

The AASU and other organizations behind the anti-foreigner movement in the State had, at the height of their agitation in the mid-Nineteen Eighties, estimated the number of illegal migrants in Assam to be as high as 4.5 to 5 million, or 31 to 34 per cent of the total population of the State in 1971. As recently as on July 14, 2004, India's Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, had told the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) that there were 5 million illegal Bangladeshis in Assam. Groups such as the AASU reacted, saying that their fears and estimates had been officially confirmed. Later, on July 23 another Minister of State for Home, Manik Rao Gavit clarified in Parliament that his colleague's statement was not based on any comprehensive study, but "on hearsay." But such glaring contradictions simply demonstrated the oft-leveled charge that political parties, in fact, lack the will to tackle the issue for fear of losing a massive 'vote bank'. With the census figures indirectly confirming the alarming picture of mass illegal migrations from Bangladesh, sparks are expected to fly in Assam.

Ironically, however, after the AASU leaders transformed themselves into politicians, forming the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in the winter of 1985 to contest the State Legislative Assembly polls and to capture power in Assam with the key promise of ridding the State of the illegal Bangladeshi migrants, the party, did little to identify and deport the aliens when it was in Government. In a span of nearly ten years, spread over two terms, the AGP Government in Assam deported fewer than 1,500 illegal migrants, blaming the poor progress in the exercise of detection and expulsion on loopholes in the controversial Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, 1983 (IMDT).

The IMDT Act operates only in Assam, while the Foreigners Act, 1946, applies to the rest of the country. Under the IMDT Act, the onus of proving the citizenship of an accused 'illegal alien' lies on the accuser, whereas in the Foreigners Act, the onus lies with the accused. Given the infirmities of the Act and the absence of political will, progress has been extremely slow. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs admits that the functioning of the IMDT Act has been "unsatisfactory", and in a presentation in mid-1999, in connection with a court case, disclosed that action under the Act had been taken as follows:

• Total enquiries (against suspected illegal migrants) initiated: 3,02,554;
• Enquiries referred to the Screening Committee: 2,96,564;
• Enquiry reports referred to the IMDT Tribunals: 31,264;
• Persons declared as illegal migrants by the IMDT Tribunals: 9,625;
• Number of illegal migrants expelled: 1,461.

In November 1998, the then Governor of Assam, Lt. Gen. (Retd) S.K.Sinha presented a 42-page official report to the President of India on 'Illegal Migration into Assam,' noting:

As a result of population movement from Bangladesh, the spectre looms large of the indigenous people of Assam being reduced to a minority in their home state… This silent and invidious demographic invasion of Assam may result in the loss of the geo-strategically vital districts of Lower Assam [on the border with Bangladesh]. The influx of these illegal migrants is turning these districts into a Muslim majority region. It will then only be a matter of time when a demand for their merger with Bangladesh may be made…

If current trends of inflow of population continue unchecked, the security implications, not only for Assam, but for the entire Northeast region, could be disastrous.

 

INDIA	BANGLADESH

Rhetoric and Denial
Saji Cherian
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

The foreign relations ensemble in South Asia has, for long, been dominated by the India-Pakistan scenario. Of late, however, a slanging match between India and Bangladesh over the terrorist infrastructure in the latter has cornered significant media space. Much of this was, again, in evidence during the Fifth Home Secretary-level biennial talks held in Dhaka on September 16-17, 2004.

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The Indian delegation, led by Home Secretary Dhirendra Singh, presented a detailed list and some specific information relating to some 195 camps of Indian insurgents that it claimed were in Bangladesh, to Bangladeshi delegates. Unsurprisingly, Dhaka denied knowledge of any such camp but said it would 'look further into the matter'. In a tit-for-tat ploy, Dhaka sought 'immediate Indian action' against anti-Bangladesh elements currently alleged to be on Indian soil. In reply, India stressed the need for an extradition treaty to facilitate the return of any such anti-Bangladeshi elements.

At the end of the talks, Bangladesh and India agreed to co-ordinate patrols in their own territories. Bangladesh also declared its readiness to sign an agreement to enhance co-operation in security issues, if required, and also agreed to consider India's proposal for an extradition treaty. Bangladesh has agreed to respond to this proposal at a meeting between the two countries likely to be held in January or early February 2004. India, on its part, proposed a three-point package proposal for Dhaka to notify India on the 1974 Land Boundary Agreement and agreed to work towards a more concrete solution to the problem after receiving Dhaka's response to the package.

India shares a 4,095-kilometer border with Bangladesh, its longest land boundary with any of its neighbours. The States of Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam in India's Northeast account for 1,879 kilometers, and the eastern state of West Bengal has a border running 2,216 kilometers along Bangladesh. An area of 6.5 kilometers of this extended frontier is yet to be demarcated and two Joint Boundary Working Groups have been set up to complete the boundary demarcation. The Indian paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) faces a surfeit of problems managing this boundary, including illegal migration from Bangladesh, trans-border movement of armed cadres belonging to a number of insurgent groups from India's northeastern states and West Bengal, as also widespread smuggling activities. The existing and emerging threats along this border are also conditioned, to a large extent, by the largely inhospitable terrain.

Dhaka's claims that no terrorist group has camps on Bangladeshi soil, and that the country does not encourage any anti-India activity from within its territory, ring increasingly hollow, with frequent reports in the Bangladeshi media of the consolidation of terrorist groups in that country. Recently, the Dhaka-based newspaper, Prothom Alo, published a five-part article on the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-BD), a designated terrorist outfit in the United States, running camps in different parts of the country to train terrorist groups from India and Myanmar. Two Islamist organisations, including the Islami Oikyo Jote, a member of the ruling coalition, subsequently staged rallies near the Chittagong office of the Daily on August 18, 2004, protesting against what they claimed were defamatory reports (under the headline 'Militant Activities in Greater Chittagong') against unregistered seminaries. Scrutinizing the lengthening shadow of Islamist terror in Bangladesh, Prothom Alo reported that HuJI has established an active network through madrassas (seminaries) and local NGOs to carry out its activities. The areas, where the newspaper sent reporters to investigate the camps, are Bandarban, Naikhangchari, Ukhia, Dailpara, Chandgaon and Khatunganj, among others, in Cox's Bazaar and Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh. The 'central command headquarters' of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), insurgent groups active in India's Northeast, are also allegedly based in these areas.

Adding to New Delhi's woes was the BSF Director General Ajai Raj Sharma's statement on September 13 that there were "firm reports" that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had set up new training centres for terrorists in Bangladesh. "The terrorist groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir are also being trained there… It [ISI] is now fully concentrating in Bangladesh," Sharma told a news conference in Jammu.

Meanwhile, the World Bank Country Director, Christine I. Wallich, reportedly left Bangladesh after receiving a death threat on September 7, 2004, an official with the multilateral lending agency said on September 10. A letter was sent to her residence in the Gulshan area of the capital Dhaka, marking her as the next target for bomb attacks. Wallich, an American citizen, is the first foreigner known to have received a death threat since the August 21 grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka in which at least 20 people died. She is reported to have subsequently returned to Dhaka after the Government assured her of adequate security.

While New Delhi has, in the past, taken a firm line about the Khaleda Zia Government's involvement in promoting separatist violence in India's northeast, the past month has been dominated by the exchange of a fair quantum of shrill rhetoric. At the centre of this tirade was the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, M. Morshed Khan, who, on September 7, speaking at the inaugural session of an 'India-Bangladesh Dialogue of Young Journalists' organised by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), alleged that Delhi was restricting imports of Bangladeshi goods into India to keep the balance of trade in its favour, despite repeated calls for an 'equitable bilateral trade'. "Dhaka too is capable of taking similar restrictive steps against Indian goods to arrive at a 'win-win' situation," Khan threatened. At the same time, he said: ''I do not want any more misconceptions like what has arisen from a neighbouring country conversing with a particular party but not the nation as a whole.'' Khan was reportedly expressing his Government's annoyance over the fact that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh only telephoned Awami League leader and former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina after she escaped an assassination attempt on August 21. Further, on September 16, the Foreign Minister claimed, "Bangladesh does not believe in retaliation against anyone, if Bangladesh wanted, it could've done so, but that does not improve relations." He said this when asked whether Dhaka would slap para-tariff and non-tariff barriers on Indian imports to narrow the trade gap between the countries. On the other hand, India had not been passive in the runup to the Secretary-level talks, and Delhi has expressed the opinion that the plug could be pulled out on the TATA group's proposed investment of $2 billion in Bangladesh in view of the 'security situation' in that country.

Two aspects of the current reality stand out. While an increasing proportion of the recent violence inspired and executed by Islamist extremists extends the lengthening shadow of terror in Bangladesh, the present regime in Dhaka has also sought to amplify its anti-India posture. There is fair indication that the regime finds such rhetoric a convenient proxy for inaction in combating the growing Islamist terror within the country. It is such inaction and indeed, the shadow of Islamist terror, which prompted Cofer Black, US State Department's Co-ordinator for Counter-Terrorism, to say on September 13 in an interview to the Outlook magazine that, "We are looking closely at Bangladesh".

There exists a certain spectrum of opinion within the Bangladeshi establishment which believes that, given India's pre-occupation with the détente with Pakistan, New Delhi will not be in a position to take an effective stand on issues like Dhaka's dalliance with the insurgencies in India's Northeast. Notwithstanding the credibility of such a presumption, there is reason now to believe that India may wish to make such options unaffordable in the future.